"I may be your second chance, Wade, but I will not be your second choice."
Reeling from the death of his mate, Alpha Wade tried everything in his power to bring her back to life. So consumed with raising her from the dead, he almost missed his secon...
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WITHOUT thinking, I tore away from Wade and sprinted towards my brother's room. I could hear both Wade and Olivia's footsteps behind me as I frantically navigated the winding hallway.
Dad's soul-crushing screams replayed over and over in my head.
Henry still had time. He wasn't supposed to die yet.
While he had slipped into a coma, we still had time. We still had time to hang onto the false hope he would wake up.
Panting, my shoes slid against the tile floors. Dad stood at Henry's side, but he was inching further and further away with each passing second. Henry looked less like himself than he had when I left to begin funeral preparations.
His skin had turned a shade paler, which I did not know was even possible. His body, slack and sweaty, blended into the bright white sheets surrounding him. His hair hung down his face, and my breath hitched.
Henry, all his life, had been dubbed Dad's little clone, a perfect carbon copy of himself. However, Dad's close proximity to my dying brother made it apparent. No one would be able to pinpoint the almost near-perfect resemblance. He was that sick.
Bile rose up my throat, and I slapped a hand over my mouth in case my stomach deceived me. I gulped down the bile, blinking hard.
"Dad," I heaved, voice filled with concern. Dad's eyes flashed over me, large and burning bright. He took a deep breath in. "What's wrong?"
Dad shook his head, his mouth hanging wide open. "He...he moved."
I closed my eyes and dared to step closer. He had truly lost it. No one ever woke up from a coma when Lupoxia was their diagnosis. No one. As much as I would have liked to believe my pesky, little brother was the exception to the rule, I couldn't make myself believe it.
"Dad," my voice was light.
He shook his head more furiously. "Violet." He licked his lips. "Don't—You didn't see it. He moved. He moved. My son, my son moved."
His voice grew more frantic with each syllable uttered, and I bridged the gap between us. "Dad."
I pulled him into an embrace, and he crumbled in my arms. His loud sobs rang through my shoulder as he murmured, "He moved," over and over again. I ran a hand down his back and looked at Henry's pale figure.
His condition had declined rapidly over the past twenty-four hours. He went from being able to joke to hardly being able to breathe. The strength to keep his eyes open slowly left his body. The only sign he was conscious had been off and on moans that left his chapped lips—that was before he slipped into his coma.
Seeing Henry so vulnerable, lying on his hospital bed so hopeless made me understand Dad. The truth of Henry's condition was hard to look at, and it was harder to grasp.
